Data portability represents an opportunity for new products and services, but also raises some difficult questions – questions we don’t think companies or governments are thinking about deeply enough yet. This offers an opportunity for those who do to develop a competitive advantage.

As part of our research, we developed a series of scenarios to explore data portability and then tested prototypes with people living in multigenerational households in the UK. The prototypes aimed to provoke conversation, rather than provide definitive solutions or services.

The aim of our work was to learn the following:

Do people understand that data can be about multiple people?

Do people see the value in transferring data between services?

What are the challenges of transferring data about multiple people between services?

How do people feel about other people using data about them in services?

Do people realise other people might have rights to data about them?

This report contains the research findings and prototypes, which are grouped into themes. It includes recommendations on to how to design for data portability in ways that respect the rights of groups and individuals. We also raise some questions for policy-makers.